Friday, November 27, 2020

The Acts of the Apostles, the history of the early church, by Luke the physician - Acts 22:22-30 comments: the crowd demands Paul's death and Paul demands his legal rights

 


Acts 22:22 ¶  And they gave him audience unto this word, and then lifted up their voices, and said, Away with such a fellow from the earth: for it is not fit that he should live. 23  And as they cried out, and cast off their clothes, and threw dust into the air, 24  The chief captain commanded him to be brought into the castle, and bade that he should be examined by scourging; that he might know wherefore they cried so against him. 25  And as they bound him with thongs, Paul said unto the centurion that stood by, Is it lawful for you to scourge a man that is a Roman, and uncondemned? 26  When the centurion heard that, he went and told the chief captain, saying, Take heed what thou doest: for this man is a Roman. 27  Then the chief captain came, and said unto him, Tell me, art thou a Roman? He said, Yea. 28  And the chief captain answered, With a great sum obtained I this freedom. And Paul said, But I was free born. 29  Then straightway they departed from him which should have examined him: and the chief captain also was afraid, after he knew that he was a Roman, and because he had bound him. 30  On the morrow, because he would have known the certainty wherefore he was accused of the Jews, he loosed him from his bands, and commanded the chief priests and all their council to appear, and brought Paul down, and set him before them.

 

The Jews had listened to Paul but were now moved to anger and riot. They wanted him dead. The things they did in tearing off clothing and throwing dirt in the air were signs of being upset and angry like you throwing a coffee cup across the room or turning over a table while arguing with a family member.

 

Paul is about to be scourged. Scourging was a brutal whipping, a punishment Christ endured. But, Paul objects because he is a Roman citizen and has not been condemned in a legal proceeding. Roman citizens, unlike the conquered nations over which they ruled, had specific rights. The right to a legal trial, to face your accusers, and defend yourself as well as the right to appeal a decision made by a magistrate were among the rights guaranteed to a Roman citizen. Offering limited citizenship was a way Rome exerted control, held out the proverbial carrot and stick to the races they conquered in an attempt to Romanize them. The bottom line is Paul, as a Roman citizen, had a right to some type of judicial proceeded and could not be simply punished at the whim of a Roman soldier, even if it would make the crowd happy.

 

Paul was probably a Roman citizen at birth because his father would have been a Roman citizen, either having been enslaved and freed by a Roman or having performed some service that granted him citizenship. In any event, Paul, while identifying ethnically, religiously, and culturally as a Jew was legally a citizen of Rome.

 

We identify as a national identity; like American or Polish-American or Pennsylvania Dutch or even an ethnic identity like African-American but our legal citizenship is before God in Heaven of which we are ambassadors as Paul will make clear.

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